The president of the Australian Medical Association has called on state and federal leaders to heed advice from medical experts and mandate masks indoors amid skyrocketing COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations. 7NEWS
Dr Omar Khorshid said the winter surge impacting hospitals had left many sick Australians without access to healthcare with more than 5000 beds nationwide occupied by virus patients.Watch the latest News on Channel 7 or stream for free onHe said chief health officers had access to data and modelling unavailable to the AMA, and their expert advice was to recommend mask use indoors.
“They need to show leadership, they need to take our community on a journey to help them to understand that this is not a ridiculous response or overreaction to a mild virus. “Everything we’ve heard from the federal government and various state health ministers and premiers is that they’re not about to introduce mandates,” he separately told“But governments are ultimately going to be held to account by the public for their failure to navigate this whole process.He called on Australians to “do the right thing” if they wanted to avoid mask mandates.
“They know Australians don’t want mask mandates but at the end of the day they have to step up and protect the community and when that time comes I expect them to do the right thing.”Credit:In the past week more than 300,000 cases were recorded in Australia,.said based on modelling from health authorities, the winter wave was expected to peak in August and would likely be over by September.
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